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AS a Wimbledon upset, it ranks as the greatest in years. Yesterday, Martina Hingis, reigning world tennis champion, and first seed of Wimbledon walked off center court after a 54-minute, 6-2, 6-0 defeat in the first round to complete-unknown Jelena Dokic, 16, of Austria. The crowds were in such shock that they could barely applaud the victor. It was the most ignominious defeat in the 18-year-old Swiss Miss’ stellar five-year career. Hingis walked off the court seemingly dazed – an unusually vacant, stoic expression on her normally radiant face. “It was just the way things happen. I couldn’t pick up my game today, and she [Dokic] didn’t give me a chance to get into it,” Hingis told reporters afterwards. “I knew she was going to be tough today . . . I’m not really that disappointed.” And then the bombshell came. “I think I need to take some time off and take a break and recover again,” Hingis said. Cynics will say that here at last is the sign that many have predicted for so long: that at 18, like so many other child tennis stars – Tracy Austin, Andrea Jaeger and Jennifer Capriati to name but a few – Martina Hingis is finally conceding she’s burned out; the mental struggle many suspect has existed – and which was first revealed two weeks ago at the French Open, when Hingis threw an uncharacteristic temper tantrum after her traumatic defeat to Steffi Graf – is now manifesting itself physically. It surely has to be significant that Hingis’ worst moment on court came when it was the first time her mother, Melanie Molitar – also her self-professed “best friend” and coach – had missed one of her major matches. “It was decided (we would) have a little bit of distance and work on our private lives,” Hingis told reporters in the after-match, adding to the bombshell. “I wanted to be more independent, rather than having someone else tell me what to do.” Inevitably, experts all over the place are offering Freudian theories as to what may be causing this dramatic change of heart. “It’s no accident that she loses to Dokic, a girl who is younger and who has a terrifically strong relationship with her parents,” says Ethan Gologor, a professor of sports psychology at the City University of New York, who’s followed her career since 1994. “Hingis’ mother has let her be a prima donna for years and get away with everything,” he continues. “Hingis has always needed someone to discipline her with an iron hand instead of a totally indulgent mother.” For years analysts have said that the obsessive mother-daughter relationship between Martina and her mother would ultimately prove the tennis star’s undoing. The sadness is, that while Melanie Molitor almost went so far as to admit she spoiled her only child emotionally – how could she not when she was virtually the only real friend the young player had on a bitchy, often lonely circuit? – she tried her best not to overindulge her daughter materially. Their modest two-story house in Switzerland has horses and, of course, a tennis court, but Martina doesn’t have Porsches and helicopters to run around in; she doesn’t flash expensive jewelry or eat in five-star restaurants. Unlike Jennifer Capriati, she’s never been tempted by parties and drugs. But in the end, it seems, Hingis, after 18 years of knowing little other than a punishing daily diet of tennis and more tennis, is saying she wants more out of life. (It was, incidentally, precisely to avoid a similar reaction from his daughters that Richard Williams, the father and coach of Venus and Serena, America’s Nos. 3 and 4 players, respectively, withheld his daughters from the pro tennis circuit all through their early teens.) But then, if Molitor pushed Martina at too young an age, she was perhaps driven by a gremlin beyond her control: thwarted personal ambition. Hingis’ current emotional state derives not from the moment she held a tennis racquet, but from the moment her mother did. Molitor was a tennis fanatic when she met husband Karol in 1976 – he was 18th in the Slovak National League, while 18-year-old Melanie was her school champion. When Martina was 3, Melanie left Karol and moved back to her home town of Roznov in Czechoslovakia with Martina so that her mother could look after the child while she tried to break into the top tennis leagues. She failed; but rather than quit her dream she turned her attention to her only daughter – named after Martina Navratilova. “Since I was in her stomach, she was thinking I was going to be a great tennis player,” Hingus told Sports Illustrated in 1997. “In the beginning, she wanted it more than I did.” Martina’s training began when Molitor placed a sawed-off wooden racket in the little girl’s hands and hit balls to her every day for 10 minutes. That training paid off; Martina won her first tournament title at 6 years of age. In 1989, when Martina was 9, Molitor divorced Karol and married Swiss banker Andreas Zogg. The family moved to Switzerland, where not only were the rules more relaxed on younger girls playing tennis professionally, but there also was more money for training. Karol remained in Czechoslovakia, where he now teaches tennis. His daughter, he has said sadly, rarely visited him over the years – she was kept so busy training with Melanie. At first, the mother-daughter duo seemed to be working beautifully. “My mother is my coach and friend, she is the best person to judge and I trust her judgment,” Martina told London’s Daily Mail in 1994, at the age of 14 – after winning two French Open junior titles and one Wimbledon. And Molitor defied critics of the punishing practice regime she put her daughter under by allowing her to keep horses and pursue other interests that actually endangered her profession. In 1997, for example, Hingis’ unbeaten streak was interrupted not by another player but by a torn knee ligament due to a horseback-riding accident. This knee injury kept her off the courts for three weeks – and affected her subsequent play. She lost to Lindsay Davenport that August, a defeat which dropped her ranking from world No. 1 to No. 2. Hingis declared that she felt 116 instead of 16. “I feel like a car that’s run out of fuel,” she told reporters at the time. But it was only a matter of weeks before Hingis was back with her seeming indomitable smile and a consistency on court that seemed to reflect an infuriatingly tough mentality and insurmountable confidence. During that year’s Wimbledon (which she came back to win), the British press even wrote sarcastic articles about her cockiness. When they asked her why she thought she would win, she replied in sound bites that implied: “Because I’m the best.” Meanwhile, to the outside world it seemed that Melanie was sensibly encouraging her daughter to develop adult, worldly tastes. Martina posed for glossy magazine covers in sophisticated dresses; the smile on her face indicated that she’d easily made the transition from gangly adolescent to poised young woman. There were stories of boyfriends – in particular Spanish tennis player Julian Alonso, but Martina told interviewers with a straight face that her lifestyle is too hectic for a serious relationship. Could this girl be for real? Was it, as Melanie had always professed, the daughter’s desire rather than the mother’s that drove her? Until the French Open – and the unexpected tantrums and breakdown on court – followed by a reversal of fortune and defeat by Steffi Graf, the Hingis detractors were weaponless. Now all that is changed. “It’s hard to believe,” says writer Alan Richman, who profiled Martina in a 1998 GQ article. “I remember Marina acting so poised and adult – she was the most engaging teen-ager I’ve seen in years. “Melanie, on the other hand, is the most controlling sports mother I’ve ever seen. And unfortunately, Martina is growing up, which her mother must not love.” Martina’s story, experts say, is the classic tale of the prima donna who peaks early and assumes she’s invulnerable. “We saw Martina at her most vulnerable on the court yesterday,” says psychologist Gologor. “For years, her mother let her get away with too much. If she isn’t going to fall to the level of someone like Jennifer Capriati, she’ll have to learn to swallow her pride and walk back onto that court without her mother hovering behind her.” Martina’s fans can only hope Melanie is listening.